Flail devices are used for delimbing trees such as described in Canadian Pat. No. 598,362 issued May 17, 1960 to Horncastle or in Canadian Pat. No. 964,965 issued Mar. 25, 1975 to Stadnick. Similar flail devices may be used for removing the bark from felled timber such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,893,451 issued July 7, 1959 Dickerson or in U.S. Pat. No. 2,891,317 issued Apr. 22, 1958 to Watkins. In another domain, such flail devices may be used for breaking up and conditioning hard snow on ski slopes, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,779,319 issued Dec. 18, 1973 to Pease.
Methods of connecting flails to the rotatable drum consist, in some of above listed patents, in fixedly securing, i.e. by welding, one end of each flail to the drum outer surface or to a member which, in turn, is fixedly attached to the drum surface, and, in some of the other patents, in providing the drum surface with a series of holes through which extend the end link of each chain; a rod is then passed through the loop of each end link for securing the flails to the drum.
In the first-mentioned types of prior flail devices, worn or damaged chains can only be replaced by breaking up the rigid connection existing between the chain and the drum while, in the latter types of flail devices, an end plate on the drum must be removed and the connecting rod pull out of each loop and then out of the drum; the damaged chain is replaced by a new one and the rod is again passed through the end loop of each chain. Hence, the replacement of damaged chains on present flail devices is time consuming and non-economical since the drum is not in use during flail removal.